Bette Davis, Errol Flynn still thrilling after all these years

"And I trusted you. And from you I learned that no one can be trusted; a lover least of all. I shall remember that."

"Take care, madam. That may be all you will have to remember."

"I shall take care."

SO it went between Bette Davis and Errol Flynn in the lavish Technicolor 1939 screen version of Maxwell Anderson's play "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex." (Anderson was the Philippa Gregory of his time. He wrote many historical plays that were loose with history but wildly entertaining.)

I caught the Davis/Flynn movie the other night on TCM and was astonished all over again at Miss Davis' power and magnetism in this signature role. Some say she exaggerated her already exaggerated "twitchy" mannerisms, but as she was only 28, playing a woman in her 50s, I assume she was attempting to convey some querulous indication of age. Whatever her intent, she is mesmerizing. The movie is one great dramatic scene after another — Elizabeth crushing her courtiers, Elizabeth hating and loving Essex, Elizabeth furious or tender with her rival (played by the gorgeous, and still vibrant, Olivia de Havilland.)

The film concludes with Elizabeth and Essex in the Tower. She wants to spare him, despite his rebellion against her, but he won't spare himself. She declares she loves him, and will always, beyond life and time, "But there is another love, a greater one."

"What is this greater love?" asks Essex. "England?"

"Yes. England. And when I think of what you would do to my country, drag it down in blood and debt, I'd see you dead, and damned for eternity."

The entire Tower sequence is heartbreaking. (Essex, of course, goes to his death, while Elizabeth screams, "Take my throne; take my life!" It probably didn't actually go like that, but it should have!)